A30198:80
Reprobation asserted, or, The doctrine of eternal election & reprobation promiscuously handled in eleven…
Reprobation asserted, or, The doctrine of eternal election & reprobation promiscuously handled in eleven chapters wherein the most material objections made by the opposers of this doctrine are fully answered, several doubts removed, and sundry cases of conscience resolved / by John Bunyan.
London: printed for G.L., 1674
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Object. But how is this similitude pertinent? For God did not only fore-see sin would be the destruction of the Creature, but let it come into the world, and so destroy the Creature. If you, as you fore-see the fruitlessness of your Tree, should withal see that which makes it so, and that too before it makes it so, and yet let the impediment come and make it so; are not you now the cause of the unfruitfulness of that Tree which you have before condemned to the sue to be burned? For God might have chose whether he would have let Adam sin, and so sin to have got into the world by him.
Object. But how is this similitude pertinent? For God did not onely fore-see sin would be the destruction of the Creature, but let it come into the world, and so destroy the Creature. If you, as you fore-see the fruitlesness of your Tree, should withal see that which makes it so, and that too before it makes it so, and yet let the imp•diment come and make it so; are not you now the cause of the unfruitfulness of that Tree which you have before condemned to the sue to be burned? For God might have chose whether he would have let Adam sin, and so sin to have got into the world by him.
Answ. Similitudes never answer every way; if they be pertinent to that for which they are intended, 'tis enough; and to that it answereth well, being brought to prove no more but the natural consequence of a true and infallible fore-sight. And now as to what is objected further, As that God might have chose whether Sin should have come into the World by Adam, to the destruction of so many: To that I shall answer,⟨p. 17⟩ 1. That Sin could not have come into the World without Gods permission, it is evident, both from the perfection of his fore-sight & power. 2. Therefore all the means, motives, and inducements thereunto, must also by him be not only fore-seen, but permitted. 3. Yet so, that God will have the timing, proceeding, bounding and ordering thereof, at his dispose: Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.